The AI Times Monthly Newspaper

Moventia and CityBike Finland OY go live with Artificial Intelligence technology that is simplifying and optimising Helsinki’s Bike Share Scheme.

LONDON, 10 July 2018 – Stage Intelligence, the leading provider of Bike Share Scheme management solutions, has partnered with Moventia, a widely recognised urban transport operator, and CityBike Finland OY, the Bike Share operator for Helsinki, to deploy its BICO Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform in Helsinki’s Bike Share Scheme. Helsinki CityBike has gone live with Stage’s AI management platform and is supporting over 600,000 residents with their new season of Bike Sharing.

The BICO solution is actively collecting citywide data and optimising Bike Share operations in Helsinki. The partnership with Stage Intelligence enables CityBike to use its BICO AI platform to drive usability of its more than 2,000 bikes and increase ridership for the new season of Bike Sharing as the CityBike scheme continues to expand into the city of Espoo.

Stage specialises in developing, training and deploying AI technology to optimise the management and operations of Bike Share Schemes globally. Its flagship BICO solution has been helping multiple Bike Share operators around the world deliver a better optimised scheme while reducing operational costs.

“Helsinki is in one of the top ten most livable cities in the world with strong cycling infrastructure and public transportation links. We are excited to go live with CityBike and its partners to transform how over 600,000 Helsinki residents experience Bike Sharing every day. Over 96% of its residents have a positive attitude towards cycling and we’re proud to be using city data and AI to get even more people cycling through optimised and efficient Bike Share Scheme management,” said Tom Nutley, Head of Operations at Stage Intelligence.

BICO is being used to optimise Helsinki’s Bike Share Scheme and get more of its citizens cycling and using public modes of transport. Helsinki is one of the top cities internationally for cycling with around six journeys a day made by bike, according to the City of Helsinki’s Bicycle Account 2017 report. By 2020, it’s aiming to increase the number of journeys taken by bicycle from 10% to 15%.

“Cycling is quite often the fastest and most comfortable way to travel in Helsinki and the city has built quite a strong culture around it. The residents love cycling, and we want to get more people on two wheels and using the city’s extensive public transport methods,” said Jordi Cabañas, GM of the Bikesharing Division at Moventia. “We chose Stage Intelligence because they understand the city and have strong processes that can help us achieve our ambitious goals in making Bike Sharing more accessible and attractive to all citizens of Helsinki.”

With population figures expected to reach 860,000 people by 2050, city officials and planners are focused on getting more of its residents cycling. Helsinki City Bikes have been at the heart of promoting the city’s cycling efforts.

“Public transportation is a big part of Helsinki with over 50% of the population relying on it for its daily commuting and Bike Sharing plays a very special role in this. Over 60% of users combine CityBike with public transportation and use it to get around the city as the Bicycle Account report states. It’s why we’ve gone live with Stage Intelligence to deliver a more efficient Bike Share Scheme and help more people in Helsinki see bikes and public transportation as a viable mode of travel,” said Juha Pitkänen, Service Manager at CityBike Finland Oy.

Stage’s BICO solution is currently deployed in numerous Bike Share Schemes around the globe including Divvy Bikes in Chicago, MIBICI in Guadalajara and Helsinki CityBike with several more deployments in the near future. It has been crucial in reducing operational costs for operators and enabling the rapid roll out of new features for its riders. Stage Intelligence has supported the Divvy Bike Share Scheme achieve over 15 million trips in Chicago.

BICO enables precise and optimal decision making and has been purpose-built to remove the complexity from managing resources within a Bike Share Scheme. Partners choose Stage Intelligence because its solutions increase their agility, adaptability and enable them to move beyond traditional manual processes.

Since its inception in 2011, Stage has collaborated with leading Bike Share operators from around the world to solve complex problems and deliver solutions that have a lasting impact on their operations.

Moventia is a public transport group since 1923, with a clear international vocation. Moventis is specialized in all type of mobility services (regular, urban, interurban and special) and moves around 110 milion passengers per year with 1.300 buses, 41 tramways, special services and 26.000 bicycles, both traditional and electric with 1.700 stations,. Regarding the automotive industry – 65 years this year – Movento sells about 27.000 new and used vehicles of the 17 brands it represents. Moventia, with 4.000 employees, is defined as a socially responsible group committed with the society, people, institutions and the environment.

CityBike Finland is a subsidiary of Smoove and Moventia. The consortium is responsible for producing and operating the Helsinki Bike Share System. It was awarded a ten-year bicycle contract for the city of Helsinki, which was signed in December 2015 between HKL and the Moventia-Smoove consortium. CityBike Finland has also won an eight-year contract for the Finnish city of Espoo.

The Helsinki Bike Sharing service offers a turnkey solution aimed at providing the citizens of Helsinki with the most advanced public bicycle service in the world via a service with 1,500 bikes and 150 stations.

After a hugely successful two days in 2017, Insurance Nexus are delighted to announce that our Insurance Analytics Canada Summitwill be returning to Toronto in 2018, September 25-26, at the Westin Prince Hotel.

Written by insurance carriers, for insurance carriers, Insurance Analytics Canadais Canada’s largest analytics summit and the only conference to focus exclusively on new strategies for embedding AI and advanced analytics in insurance. Over 300 C-level attendees will hear from the experts on how to seamlessly integrate new technologies alongside legacy systems, and how AI and advanced analytics can accelerate underwriting, fast-track claims and ultimately, make their organization stand out in a hugely competitive insurance market. Specifically tailored to the Canadian insurance market, Insurance Analytics Canadawill feature multiple tracks, each focusing on salient issues identified by Canadian insurers.

Confirmed speakers include Desjardins’ Senior Vice President of State Farm, Barbara Bellissimo, who will cut through the hype to discuss the realistic benefits and applications of AI, as well as Intact’s Vice President and Chief Data Officer, Jean-François Lessard and Anne Foat, Global Digital Transformation Officer at Sun Life Financial. Other confirmed speakers include:

Insurance Analytics Canadawill also feature more interactivity than ever before; remote polling will gather the audience’s perspectives on pressing issues and attendees will be able to submit their own questions to our expert speakers using the Slido platform. To give delegates more control over their own networking, Insurance Analytics Canadawill also be utilizing the innovative Brella app, that allows attendees to set their own meetings and create valuable business networks that can be leveraged in future.

With the agenda nearly complete and tickets on sale, register now to secure your place in Canada’s Insurance Analytics revolution! http://bit.ly/2KZzgzb

With great pleasure we announce the 6th International Conference on Big Data, Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining Conference August 06-07, 2018 at Abu Dhabi, UAE. Conferences mainly focus on International Big Data communities to take a fresh look at the key topics and challenges that our field faces. The theme of this Conference is “Novel Technologies: Learning, Modelling and Interface with Data”, which means just not to explore the recent advancement rather it could be expanded to all possible ways which will be helpful in more and more advance research in this emerging field.

On behalf of the organizing committee, we are delighted to welcome you to the “International Conference on Artificial Intelligence” which to be held during 22nd December 2018. The main theme of the conference is to enhance the future of the machine learning “It is the nice forum for the researchers, scholars, and students to exchange their ideas. The conference will speak on the machine learning, Bigdata and Robotics where experts tend to submit research papers and presentation will inspire over the conferences. We behalf of the organizing committee, however, your presence over the venue will add one more feather to the crown of Artificial Intelligence 2018.For more details go to the following website:https://internationalconferencealert.com/

AI World & Expo is the largest independent enterprise AI event in the U.S. This year AI World 2018 will draw 3000 enterprise executives and decision makers from Global 2000 organizations. The 3-day conference and expo brings together the entire applied AI ecosystem, including innovative enterprises, industry thought leaders, startups, investors, developers, independent researchers and leading solution providers. Join 200+ speakers, 70+ sessions and 85+ sponsors and exhibitors.

Since then, our platform has grown tremendously and we’ve created a complete ecosystem for the sharing of AI knowledge.

One special highlight of this community-wide engagement is the AI Awards, which have been a huge success on a global scale. The ‘Oscars of the AI tech world’ and the only independent AI Awards, we have awarded 27 winners in previous years. To celebrate the Awards’ third year, we have created a bigger programme of events to lead-up to December’s ceremony. Nominations are still open, with an impressive 53 award categories of awards. Judging and showcases will take place at various locations over the coming month so get your entries in ASAP!

The purpose and focus of Informed.AI will always be the same: to enable people to learn more about artificial intelligence and to make the subject more accessible for everyone. Essentially, we support the AI Community and are always looking for ways to widen our scope, coverage, accessibility and appeal.

The past three years have been an amazing journey. On a practical level, we’ve added more functionality to into.AI (previously homeAI.info), creating a number supporting sites for specific parts of the ecosystem (see below for a full breakdown). But by far the most enjoyable part has been meeting so many people and helping them to engage better with the wider AI community.

We have always recognised the importance of keeping our site users happy and welcome feedback and comments from anyone using the platform. Just last month we held our first AI RoundTable, which provided incredibly valuable feedback on how to further enhance the ecosystem. We’ll be implementing a lot of these suggestions over the coming months, so stay tuned…

It’s been beyond encouraging to witness the organic growth of our users over the past three years:

We now have close to 1,000 visitors per day from every country across the world

Our Neurons professional network has hit 6,000 members, with 25 groups in 15 countries, and is growing every week

We have many thousands of followers on our social media channels and newsletters.

We have a brilliant network of volunteers who enable us to do so much. These include chapter leaders of the meetup groups, judges for the annual achievement awards, and the dedicated central team that support me on many other tasks and plans.

This truly is a community for the people, run by the people. I am so proud to be part of it.

I want to thank you all for being part of the Informed.AI network and ask that you continue to share with you friends and colleagues and help us make this the best and biggest AI community out there.

Andy Pardoe

The site we launched three years ago has grown into a number of sites that form the complete AI ecosystem:

INTO.AI

Recently rebranded from homeAI.info to align with other .AI domains and to more clearly tell our story.

We want to thank everyone for their continued involvement. We are always looking for contributors to submit stories, press releases and thought-leadership articles. Sharing your news and views is an intrinsic part of the ecosystem so please keep submitting your news!

We also have a regular spotlight for AI companies/start-ups who want to showcase their new products. This is a totally free promotional tool. Individuals can also submit content for this – we have book authors, for example.NEW! We are now also creating our own unique stories, articles and papers. This exclusive content will also be shared as part of our newsletters so please sign up if you haven’t already

AWARDS.AI

The official website of the AI Awards, where you can place your nominations and learn about previous winners.

Nominations for the 2018 awards are open until July 15th. Please use the form on Awards.AI to submit.

Awards.AI is the first and biggest global annual achievement awards for artificial intelligence. Our focus is to support the AI community by recognising and celebrating the hard work and dedication of those working in this field.

Award Showcases will be held between September and November – these give shortlisted nominees the opportunity to demonstrate their technology to the public and judging panel. Confirmed Showcase dates can be found at Awards.ai/programme. Award winners will be announced at a ceremony in London in December and tickets for this event will be on sale from September.

NEURONS.AI

A Professional Network for AI Practitioners and Researchers.

Growing steadily in size, this is a mix of both online and offline interactions, with meetups, forums, user blogs and messaging. This platform facilitates knowledge sharing between organisations, allowing us all to benefit from the open developments of this field.

We have over 20 Chapters in 15 countries around the world, with more being added every month.

If you would like to lead a chapter in your city, please let us know.

EVENTS.AI

Over 200 AI related events, conferences, meetups, one-day events and webinars. With the largest list of discount codes for AI conferences in one place.

This is a great place to plan your annual itinerary and save money too!

VOCATION.AI

A career portal and jobs board to support key areas of development.

One of the key issues highlighted by the Royal Society report on Machine Learning was the potential skills gap this industry is facing. Obviously there isn’t a single solution to this, but we hope that into.AI – from a training and education perspective – and Vocation.AI- from a career/jobs perspective – will help to support the development needed over the coming years.

Updated with a fresh, new design, we are looking to partner with agencies and companies to list opportunities. Candidates can also post their profiles and CVs online.

SHOWCASE.AI

With our first AI RoundTable being a successful event, we are planning to host more in the coming months.

We have plans to host a Summit later this year, plus our Quarterly Showcase events – providing Online Live Demonstrations of AI Products, Frameworks and Tools. We are also planning to hosting an Annual UnConference for Researchers to better share ideas and receive feedback- more on this soon!

Have you heard of brain plasticity? It’s really an amazing thing. And if you know how to use it to your advantage, you can supercharge your brain!

Brain plasticity, also known as neuroplasticity, is a term used by neuroscientists that refers to the brain’s ability to change and grow at any age. This flexibility is critically important during our brain development and in shaping personalities.

Prior to the 1960s, scientists believed that changes in the brain only took place during infancy and childhood. Most believed that the brain’s physical structure was permanent by adulthood. Modern research has concluded that the brain creates new neural pathways and alters existing ones to adapt to new experiences, create new memories, and learn new information, right up until the day we die.

Psychologist William James was the first to suggest (in 1890) that the brain was not as unchanging as formerly believed. In his book The Principles of Psychology, he wrote, “Organic matter, especially nervous tissue, seems endowed with a very extraordinary degree of plasticity.” However, his idea was ignored for decades.

From the 1920s to the 1960s, researchers began to explore the creation of new neural pathways and followed cases where older adults suffering the aftermath of massive strokes were able to “regain functioning, demonstrating that the brain was much more malleable than previously believed.” Modern researchers have confirmed that the brain is able to rewire itself following damage.

Characteristics of Plasticity

There are a few defining characteristics of neuroplasticity:

It varies by age. Though plasticity is present for a lifetime, certain changes are more likely during specific ages.

The brain never stops changing in response to learning. In cases of damage to the brain, the areas of the brain associated with certain functions may be damaged; but, healthy parts of the brain may take over those functions and the abilities can be restored.

Environment and genetics both have an influence on plasticity. The stimulation and sensory input of the environment will have a direct effect on how the brain grows and changes. Similarly, if you have a genetic predisposition toward learning, you are more likely to take in and retain information and skills more quickly.

There are two types of neuroplasticity:

Functional plasticity: The brain’s ability to move functions from a damaged area of the brain to other undamaged areas.

Structural plasticity: The brain’s ability to actually change its physical structure as a result of learning.

Both types of plasticity can be harnessed to improve our brains.

Ways To Harness Plasticity

With the right circumstances, the power of brain plasticity can help adult minds grow. Although certain brain functions decay with age, people can tap into plasticity and refresh the brain.

Targeted brain plasticity exercises help to keep our brains fit. Even those suffering from brain damage may be able to retrain their brains for better function. The key is identifying what brain functions to target and how to best exercise them.

Researchers suggest that there arevarious methods of harnessing brain plasticity:

Intermittent Fasting

The Society for Neuroscience suggests that fasting increases synaptic plasticity, decreases risk of neurodegenerative diseases, promotes neuron growth and improves cognitive function. When you fast, a metabolic shift reduces the body’s leptin levels. Thus, the brain receives a chemical signal for neurons to produce more energy.

Travel

Traveling encourages neurogenesis by exposing your brain to new, fresh, and complex environments. Paul Nussbaum, a neuropsychologist from the University of Pittsburgh explains, “Those new and challenging situations cause the brain to sprout dendrites.” And a week-long tour of another country isn’t necessary to get this benefit; take a weekend road trip to a different city.

Use Mnemonic Devices

Memory training promotes connectivity in your brain’s prefrontal parietal network and can slow memory loss with age. Mnemonic devices combine visualization, imagery, spatial navigation, and rhythm and melody, so they can reach various parts of the brain simultaneously.

Learn an Instrument

Musicians’ brains show sharp connectivity between brain areas. Neuroscientists explain that the multi-sensory experience of playing a musical instrument allows for the association of motor actions with specific sounds, and memorizing visual patterns leads to new neural networks being formed. As you practice a new instrument, the repetition will allow for neuroplasticity to do its work.

Non-Dominant Hand Exercises

Using your non-dominant hand during routine tasks can help form new neural pathways. Doing this strengthens connectivity between your brain cells. Studies also show that non-dominant hand activities improve emotional health and impulse control. Try switching hands during some simple tasks and give your brain a test.

Read Fiction

Studies show increased and ongoing connectivity in the brains of participants after reading a novel. Enhanced brain activity occurred in the brain area that controls physical sensations and movement. Scientists explain that reading a novel can be a physical transportation into the fictional world. Shifting into this mental state is crucial for learning how to have complex social relationships.

Expand your Vocabulary

When you learn new words, the brain’s visual processes, memory processes, and auditory processes activate. The smaller your vocabulary, the more likely you are to have poor cognitive skills.

Sleep

Studies show that sleep “helps learning retention with the growth of dendritic spines, the tiny protrusions that connect brain cells and facilitates the passage of information across synapses.” Getting 7-8 hours of sleep each night will help the brain retain information.

How Exactly Does Plasticity Improve the Mind?

In his book, Soft-Wired: How the New Science of Brain Plasticity Can Change Your Life, Dr. Michael Merzenich, a leading pioneer in brain plasticity research and co-founder of Posit Science, lists ten core principles necessary for the remodeling of your brain to take place:

Change is mostly limited to situations in which the brain is in the mood for it. If you are engaged, your brain will be too.

Be more motivated and more alert. Those intensely focused on the task and devoted to mastering something will experience greater change.

The strengths of the connections of neurons that are engaged together, moment by moment, are actually what changes.

The brain strengthens its connections between teams of neurons when things occur in the same order over time.

Though the first brain changes are temporary, changes become permanent if your brain judges the experience to be worthy of remembrance.

Brain changes happen through internal mental rehearsal just as physical rehearsal in the real world helps us learn and execute specific tasks.

Memory is the key to learning. When you learn a new skill, your brain notes the good, the bad, and the ugly. The most recent good try is the one that the brain remembers.

When your brain strengthens a connection in advancing your mastery of a task, it weakens unnecessary connections of neurons that weren’t used.

Brain plasticity can go either way; you can generate negative changes just as easily as positive changes.

Maintaining Plasticity

We can understand that thebrain is designed to be stimulated and challenged, to carefully examine and interpret the environment, and keep track of the details, all of which is necessary for survival.

But, people in society tend to remove themselves from details of life. They don’t keep track of things in their heads anymore; they use smartphones with speed dial, address books, and reminder features. They rely on GPS rather than paying attention to street signs and navigation skills.

As we age, we go from the acquisition of abilities to using the abilities acquired earlier in life. We operate on autopilot. The skills and tasks we have mastered are done simply by rote. We are largely disengaged.

Modern culture has reduced stimulation on the functional level, while we engage ourselves at an abstract level of operations. Details no longer matter and our brains are deteriorating as a result. As we continue to disengage from the simple act of memory recall, we are letting our brain plasticity lie dormant.

But, it is more than possible tomaintain plasticity as we age. Humans have the ability to learn new things, master new skills or learn new languages, even into old age. This example of neuroplasticity will most likely involve structural and biochemical changes at the level of the synapse.

Adult brains remember new activities through repetition. When an enriched and stimulating environment is offered to a damaged brain, recovery can occur. Not everyone will be able to recover, however. The amount of brain damage and the treatments and rehabilitation will be the key to engaging neuroplasticity.

Conclusion

The brain is an amazing source of skill, memory, and functionality. Its ability to continuously improve functionally and structurally make human beings one of the most sophisticated creatures on the planet.

We all have the power to train, modify, and heal our own brains through hard work, focused effort, and a belief in the power of the mind.

Pat Inc and V-KAIWA are collaborating to bring Conversational AI to language learners in an immersive, VR environment. This is a great innovation bringing together new approaches in pedagogy and AI to improve the way you learn a foreign language. Imagine practicing conversation, questions and answers, around ‘real world’ daily experiences. Machine Intelligence company Pat Inc provides the sophisticated NLU (Natural Language Understanding) platform enabling V-KAIWA to give university students and other learners access to practicing their English learning in a safe environment. If you want to see them present as finalists in the XR Education Prize Challenge sponsored by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, they will be in LA in July. If you are an investor and interested in being part of this journey, please contact Pat Inc or V-KAIWA. If you want to waitlist for the NLU API, please visit Pat.ai website.

The purpose and focus of Informed.AI has always been, and still is, to enable people to learn more artificial intelligence, making the subject more accessible to everyone. Essentially Supporting the AI Community.

Since the first website, our platform has grown tremendously, creating a complete ecosystem and platform for the sharing of AI knowledge.

The past three years have been an amazing journey, adding more functionality to into.AI (previously called homeAI.info) creating a number supporting sites for specific parts of the ecosystem. But the most enjoyable part of this for us has always been meeting people and helping them to engage better with the wider AI community.

Even in those early days, we appreciated the importance of keeping the users of the sites happy, always open to feedback and comments from those using the platform. In-fact only last month, we held our first AI RoundTable, which provided much valuable feedback and suggestions on how to make the ecosystem better, many of which we will be implementing over the coming months.

Over the three years, our user base has demonstrated wonderfully encouraging organic growth. We now have close to 1,000 visitors per day to our websites from every country across the world. 6,000 members are part of our Neurons professional network with 25 groups in 15 countries and this is expanding on a weekly basis, and with nearly 100,000 followers of our various social media channels, and several thousand people subscribing to our various newsletters.

We also have a great network of volunteers, from the chapter leaders of the various meetup groups, to the judges for the for annual achievement awards, and the central team that support me on many other tasks and plans.

This is truly a community for the people, run by the people, and it makes me so proud to be part of it.

I want to thank you all for being part of the community and ask that you share with you friends and colleagues and help us make this the best and biggest AI community.

The one site we launched three years ago, has grown into a number of sites, that forms the complete AI ecosystem, as shown below:

into.AI

We recently rebranded from homeAI.info, wanting to align with our other .AI domains, and make it a bit more obvious what we are all about.

We want to thank everyone for their continued involvement. We are always looking for contributors, to submit stories, press releases and thought leadership articles. Sharing your news and thoughts is all part what this ecosystems is designed for, so please don’t hesitate to submit your news on our platform.

We are now also creating our own unique stories, articles and papers, which we hope you will enjoy. This exclusive content will also be shared as part of our newsletters.

We have a regular spotlight for those AI companies / startups that want to showcase their new products to the community. Totally free method of promoting yourselves. We have also featured individuals who have authored books for example.

Awards.AI

The AI Awards, have been a huge success on a global scale, we have already awarded 27 winners of the AI Awards. Having now entered our third year, we are making it a much bigger programme of events throughout the year. Currently still open for nominations, across 53 categories of awards, the judging and showcases will occurring in the coming months at various locations, with the awards ceremony happening in early December.

This is the Oscars of the AI tech world, the only independent AI Awards.

Neurons.AI and Chapters.Neurons.AI

We continue to grow our Professional Network for AI Practitioners and Researchers call Neurons. This is a mix of both online and offline interactions, with meetups, forums, user blogs and messaging. This platform allows us to facilitate the knowledge sharing between organisations, allowing us all to benefit from the open developments of this field.

We have over twenty Chapters in 15 countries around the world, and continue to grow the number every month.

If you would like to lead a chapter in your City, please let us know.

Events.AI

Now listing over 200 AI related events, conferences, meetups, one-day events and webinars. With the largest list of discount codes for AI conferences in one place.

Vocation.AI

One of the key issues highlighted by the Royal Society report on Machine Learning was the potential skills gap as an industry we are facing. Obviously there isn’t a single solution to this, but we hope both into.AI from a training and education perspective, and Vocation.AI from a career portal and jobs board will help to support this key area of development needed over the coming years.

Updated with a fresh new design a few months ago, we are looking to partner with agencies and companies to list opportunities as well as allow candidates to post their profiles and CVs online.

Showcase.AI

With our first AI RoundTable being a successful event, we are planning to host more in the coming months.

We have plans to host a Summit later this year, plus our Quarterly Showcase events too, providing Online Live Demonstrations of AI Products, Frameworks and Tools.

We also plan to host an Annual UnConference for Researchers to better share ideas and receive feedback (more on this soon).

Other Updates

In addition to growing our user-base, our number of volunteers, and the functionality provided by our websites, we also upgraded to a new website hosting company, providing much improved site performance. The migrations occurred seamlessly without any significant issue. We also updated our logos and colour schemes. We added facebook pages for each site, a linkedIn group and a slack channel.

Growth and Funding

Our main challenge with this ecosystem, is that there is so much more we would do with the platform, given more time, resources and with a little bit of funding. To this end, we are currently seeking seed funding for Informed.AI and am also looking at alternative methods, such as crowd funding (watch this space).

We also have a number of sponsorship opportunities across the platform, including the Awards and Neurons. If you would like your company to be associated with the great work we are doing with this ecosystem, please contact us for more details.

In addition we have a number of additional projects and sites in the planning stage which we will be launching in the coming months, which will add new capabilities to our portfolio of sites.

Volunteers Needed

We are always looking for more help and support from volunteers.

We need more chapter leaders, and co-leads for each chapter, with additional support for each too.

Much more help on content for many of our sites, from blogs to structured updates on specific sites. We really need alot of help here.

Partnerships, Sponsorships and Business Development are all areas we need to extend and develop over the coming months. We would appreciate any help from people who believe they can contribute to these areas for us.

We Value your Support Feedback and Comments

As always, your feedback is welcomed and encouraged, as we want to make sure we are delivering useful sites and functionality. The best way to do this is email us at talk@into.AI

We are celebrating our 3rd Anniversary with a Summer Party on Tuesday 19th June, 6pm.

A free event that is purely a networking opportunity, so come and meet others working in the industry of AI and celebrate with the founder of Neurons.AI and Informed.AI, Dr Andy Pardoe.

Our third anniversary is a great milestone for the development of the ecosystem we have build, so come and celebrate the success. The platform has been growing at pace, with new groups being added very month.

The largest insurance analytics summit in North America comes back in 2018! At the Insurance AI & Analytics USA Summit (June 27-28, Chicago) http://bit.ly/2FdTtvl, you’ll be able to build a roadmap for launching AI and machine learning across your business and most importantly, integrate machine learning and AI to work with existing processes. This means you will walk away with a list of both the critical things you and your organization need to do, and more importantly, how to design and implement these changes. Find more info here: http://bit.ly/2FdTtvl #InsuranceAI

I am very pleased to announce that we have decided to open up the platform so anyone can read the content posted on the site from user blogs and forum posts. This should make the platform more accessible to everyone, and mean that you only need to sign-up and login if you wish to post content to share with others.

We hope this makes the platform more useful for most people that are just interested in reading others points of view.

As always we appreciate people’s feedback and are looking to make this and the rest of our AI ecosystem as useful as possible for everyone.

Cosmic Series welcomes you to attend 2018 Mental Health and Neurology Conference (2018MHNC) held during September 18-19, 2018 at Bangkok, Thailand with the theme “Melioration in Innovations with advancement in Mental Health and Neurology” This international meet anticipates hundreds of participants including keynote speakers, Oral presentations by renowned speakers and poster presenters besides delegates around the world. This conference perhaps a giant event that creates an ideal platform to share expertise addressing current advancements involved in Psychiatry and Neurology. It will be a wonderful opportunity for all the delegates as it provides an international networking opportunity to collaborate with the world-class Mental Health and Medical Associations.

Truthify enables insight-driven decision making and planning while engaging audiences, stakeholders and buyers in a completely different way. Anyone that wants to identify emotional reactions to their message or content can use Truthify to upload or record a video and send it to an endless number of recipients. The recipient watches the video message after enabling camera permissions, and then the app uses Emotion AI to identify the recipient’s subconscious emotional reaction to the sender’s message and shares the reaction with both the sender and recipient.

Up to 90 percent of purchasing decisions are made subconsciously. However, current market and qualitative research techniques for gathering customer and prospect feedback, like focus groups, surveys and polls, are not scalable and give little insight into a person’s subconscious. Typically, market research gathers feedback from a small subset of a brand’s audience, who may or may not be sharing their first (and truest) reaction. Using this as a basis when spending millions, or tens of millions, of dollars on a new advertising campaign, a consumer product launch, or to decide the next face of your political campaign, can be extremely risky. To continue to be successful, marketers will need to supplement current techniques with greater insight and scalability – both of which Truthify provides.

“Until now, brands haven’t had a means of quickly identifying the true reactions of their audience and were relegated to traditional research methods,” said Kevin Knull, CEO and Co-Founder, Truthify. “Truthify is a more modern solution to help both brands and individuals gain audience feedback that is immediate, authentic, and actionable. For the brand, knowing how a message is received by its audience before it is widespread could be very beneficial, and it could either help drive increased revenue, prevent significant losses, or avoid public relations missteps. This is honest feedback measured at 14 times per second, and it goes far beyond a ‘like’ button.”

“Truthify has the potential to disrupt the marketing and advertising industries in a really positive way,” said Joe Koufman, founder and CEO, AgencySparks, which is a matchmaker for brands and marketing agencies. “Truthify’s unique ability to enable brands to test and deliver video content quickly to ensure that it resonates emotionally with a target audience is a game-changer.”

Results within the Truthify app can be filtered by aggregate or individual recipient comments, emotions and more. Users are also granted analytics that offer important details about their content, such as recipient demographics, the specific point at which a recipient’s emotion changed, and the device and operating system used to view the content. All of this makes it easy for brands, marketers and others to confidently make plans and decisions rooted in accurate insights that will resonate with their audience, and entice them to take an action. And, unlike current focus groups, the user can create a campaign, send it to the desired audience, and receive responses in minutes rather than weeks.

The Emotion AI Technology Behind Truthify

Truthify partnered with Emotion AI company Affectiva, and is using their technology to evaluate recipients’ spontaneous reactions to a stimulus by tracking facial expressions and emotions. Affectiva has analyzed more than 6.5 million faces of varying gender, age and ethnicity in 87 countries, to ensure high accuracy for their technology in real-world scenarios. The seven emotions that Truthify measures include anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise. With Affectiva’s Emotion AI, Truthify allows brands, marketers and others to understand complex and nuanced emotional reactions to their content in order to make better, more informed decisions.

“Emotions influence every aspect of our lives, from how we learn, to how we communicate, to what we purchase. And yet, our technology and devices today have a lot of IQ, but they’re lacking EQ, or emotion awareness,” said Dr. Rana el Kaliouby, CEO and co-founder, Affectiva. “Our mission at Affectiva is to humanize technology with Emotion AI. What makes the Truthify application exciting is that it gives anyone with a smartphone the power to use technology to better understand each other and how we emote, as well as decipher what is often lost in digital communication – emotions. Truthify allows brands, as well as consumers, to connect with those around them in a more meaningful way.”

Resources:

Download the Truthify app for iOS in the iTunes App Store. Truthify for Android devices will be available shortly.

Truthify is an Emotion AI company with a short-form video messaging application that provides subconscious emotional reactions at scale for anyone that sees value in knowing how a person actually responds to content. Marketers, advertising and media companies, consumer brands, political campaigns and civic leaders use Truthify to gain honest feedback to questions, ideas, content, products, and people from their audience, buyers and stakeholders. Truthify empowers smart decision making and successful business outcomes for businesses, while providing individuals greater insight in their personal interactions with friends.

Let’s face it – we’ve all been lied to upon asking a friend or family member for an opinion. But what if you had the power to understand someone’s honest, gut reaction based on what they think? What would you ask first?

Artificial emotional intelligence (Emotion AI) company Truthify wants to make that a reality. On Thursday, 5/17*, Truthify will announce a first-of-its kind, short-form video messaging app to help consumers, brands, marketers, agencies, and others gather at-scale audience feedback that is immediate, authentic and actionable.

Anyone that wants to identify emotional reactions to their message or content can use Truthify to upload or record a video and send it to an endless number of recipients. Then, the app uses Emotion AI tech from Affectiva to identify the recipient’s subconscious emotional reaction to the sender’s message.

For example, someone could send a message to a love interest asking, “Do you want to go on a date with me?” and see their true reactions – whether they show interest through excitement or happiness, or disinterest through sadness, disgust or anger. Or, a brand could send an advertisement to a test group, to see if it’s eliciting the desired response, i.e. making respondents laugh if the ad is supposed to be funny.

You’re welcome to download Truthify and follow this link to test out some of the videos already in the app.

Are you interested in speaking with Kevin Knull, CEO and co-founder of Truthify, to learn more ahead of the launch? I can also share the press release and other videos under embargo if you’re interested.

Scope of the exhibition is entire EAST African region and not only Kenya. Main countries covered are – Burundi, Ethiopia, Malawi, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa, Congo, Madagascar etc

Budget booth packages starting just 1200 USD for a small 4 Sqm booth in Hall B which will include 1 Table, 2 Chair, and 1 Spotlight. This option is not mentioned in event catalogue-flyer, hence I am mentioning separately.

Imagine a set of instructions just like an assembler program. Lets assume in one variant that there are only 4 possible instructions. A C G T. The order and the combinations of these instructions can build any kind of complex sequence. And actually any kind of complex creature as our DNA is exactly what i am talking about. Only four instructions are the basic program for all living creature. Including man. Now in a digital lifetime lets assume that the same principle could be used to construct an artificial creature. A software complex enough to solve narrow tasks. And there is such a construction. I have called it CAL Cortex Assembler Language. It has about 30 instructions and it can be used to build any kind of neural network or state machine. The interesting part is that you can program it to solve tasks but also train it to handle tasks that we dont know How to program sequentially. And now to the most exciting statement. The code can also be evolved using the same principles that are the base of our excistence. An evolutionary build code by a genetic algorithm can build any kind of intelligent software. You have a problem. You dont know the exact solution but you know some expected goals. And that is enough to have an evolution of an artificial intelligence

I hope you had a lovely Easter holiday.Just a quick reminder that our next London Chapter meeting is scheduled for the Tuesday 10th April 6pm to 9:30pm.

We have the best lineup of speakers with Dr Janet Bastiman and Aric Whitewood, so it promises to be a fantastic evening. Plus Andy will talk about a new framework he his designing to help measure the progress of AI.

Dr Janet Bastiman is Chief Science Officer at Storystream where she heads up the AI division. She has extensive experience in leading teams and building AI systems. With over 10 years experience at C-level, she has taken abstract concepts to innovative scalable products at multiple companies. A STEM polymath, Janet brings multidisciplinary ideas to the departments she leads, forming cutting edge research teams with an eye on delivery that is rarely seen. She has a bachelors and masters degree in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry from Oxford, and her PhD was in the field of Computational Neuroscience. Janet is a co-founder of the Tech Women London Meetup group and regularly speaks and writes on various technical subjects. She blogs on maths and technology at http://janjanjan.uk.

Aric Whitewood is the founding partner of WilmotML which combines machine learning and AI techniques with an established macro and risk appetite framework, in order to provide advisory services and to create new investment products. Previously Aric and I worked together at Credit Suisse, where Aric was the Head of Data Science for Client Analytics based in Switzerland.

Aerial Technologies Raises 1.94M$ in Financing from VCs and Strategic Partners, and Recruits WiFi Industry Veteran as First Independent Board Member

Montreal, February 26, 2018 – Aerial Technologies, a Montreal-based provider of wireless motion analytics solutions, is proud to announce today that it has secured an additional 1.94M$ CAD in capital for its Seed Preferred round. This latest round is led by an undisclosed chipset manufacturer, in addition to current investors, Fonds Innovexport, Kibo Ventures, Quebecor, and Telefónica Open Future_ who are increasing their positions.

The capital will be used to further accelerate the company’s growth, both on the organizational and business fronts. “Having demonstrated that our technology works and meeting and exceeding prior funding milestones, I am very pleased our investors share our vision and are helping support our growth with additional capital and advice,” says David Grant, CEO of Aerial Technologies. Industry experts estimate the IoT industry will witness increases between 2018 and 2022 of more than 40% CAGR, with even greater growth in the IoT sensor segment. A recent study predicts IoT spending in 2018 will top $772B USD lead by manufacturing, transportation and utilities. Aerial will enable many of these devices to react to natural human motion, thereby unlocking enhanced services without the need for wearables or cognitive human interaction.

“Aerial’s strongest assets are their incredible team and a patented technology that is bringing an entirely new perspective to the residential market, leading a new breed of device-free services for the home. The market response so far has been phenomenal as we are seeing explosive growth of both enquiries and sales pipeline for its solutions,” mentions Aquilino Peña, Founding Partner, Kibo Ventures.

“At Telefónica Open Future_ innovation funds, we are continuously searching new capabilities and projects that enhance our value proposition of our connectivity business. Our participation in this new investment round endorses such approach as well as enhances our smart WiFi platform with potential new services to be delivered to our clients,” adds Gonzalo Martin Villa, Innovation Director at Telefónica.

“Aerial has the potential to enhance and augment the growing number of IoT solutions with the power of motion. Many solutions today require users to wear devices or cognitively interact with applications. With Aerial, devices use natural motion without thought. Imagine how smart your home could be if it knew when you were home and when you were away. Your home could lock the doors and set the alarm naturally, it could turn on lights and other appliances when you need them, and insure they are off or in power-saving mode when you don’t. We are currently testing these and other services such as elderly care monitoring in collaboration with our partners who will be offering such services,” says Grant.

Additionally, we are proud to announce the nomination of John Major as our first independent board member. Major founded MTSG, a strategic consulting and investment company of which he has been serving as president since 2003. He joined the board of Broadcom in 2003. Major served as chairman and lead independent director from 2008 to 2012. He left the board in April 2016 following the Avago acquisition. He also held various executive and leadership positions at Motorola Inc. for nearly two decades, the most recent of which was Senior Vice President and CTO. Major received a B.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Rochester, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois, an M.B.A. from Northwestern University, and a J.D. from Loyola University.

Aerial will be exhibiting at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Hall 7 stand M11 from February 26 to March 1, 2018. Our CEO, David Grant, will be presenting “Humans Making Waves: Leveraging Disturbances in the Wireless Mesh” on February 26 at 12h20 and 13h30 on the Showcase Stage in Hall 4. Visit Aerial’s website to learn more about the technology behind our solutions

About Aerial Technologies
Aerial provides ISPs and MSOs, healthcare players, security systems integrators, and smart object manufacturers with a unique cloud-based, low-cost solution that leverages existing wireless infrastructure and machine learning to give context, meaning and value to motion. Aerial’s passive and contextual solutions do not require users to interact with them, they recognize users and background. With our WiFi motion analytics SaaS, customers have access to new revenue streams with a minimum investment. Our customers also gain from accessing end-user actionable data to help them make better business decisions. We aim at becoming the wireless standard for smart motion detection through continuous innovation, passion, simplicity and inventiveness for the smart home, home care, security, healthcare and targeted media applications. Aerial’s headquarters is based in Canada; we also operate from two regional offices in the USA and in Europe. For more information about how Aerial is making IoT more human, visit www.aerial.ai.

About Fonds Innovexport
Based in Quebec City, Innovexport invests in start-up companies in the Province of Quebec having innovative products or services with strong export potential. Innovexport was created by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs with the objective to help them grow their companies.
www.fondsinnovexport.com

About Kibo Ventures
Kibo Ventures, based in Madrid, Spain, is a VC Fund focused on early-stage investments in digital companies. Kibo Ventures invests in teams with global ambition, unique technologies and scalable business models. Kibo Ventures manages $130 million from a mix of institutional and private investors, including IEF, Telefonica, the Spanish Government (through CDTI), Mutua Madrileña (Spain’s largest insurance company), FondICO and CaixaBank. Kibo Ventures has invested in over 40 companies in Europe, the Americas and Spain, including Flywire, Carto, Job and Talent, and WorldSensing, and has co-invested with many of the largest US and European VC Funds. www.kiboventures.com

About Quebecor
Quebecor, a Canadian leader in telecommunications, entertainment, news media and culture, is one of the best-performing integrated communications companies in the industry. Driven by their determination to deliver the best possible customer experience, all of Quebecor’s subsidiaries and brands are differentiated by their high-quality, multiplatform, convergent products and services. Quebecor (TSX: QBR.A, QBR..B) is headquartered in Québec. It holds an 81.53% interest in Quebecor Media, which employs more than 10,000 people in Canada. A family business founded in 1950, Quebecor is strongly committed to the community. Every year, it actively supports more than 400 organizations working in the vital fields of culture, health, education, the environment and entrepreneurship. www.quebecor.com

About Telefónica Open Future_
Telefónica Open Future_ is Telefonica´s global platform designed to connect entrepreneurs, startups, investors and public and private partners around the world to capture innovation and business opportunities. The programme incorporates all of Telefónica Group’s open innovation, entrepreneurship and investment initiatives through over 50 spaces and different investment vehicles. To date, 800 startups have been invested. Telefónica Open Future_ is present in 16 countries www.openfuture.org/en